


How These Things Change Us

by EliseMarie314



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: After the show has ended, Anxiety, Depression, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Married for...?, Post The Long Night, post natal depression, post pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-03 01:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11521665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EliseMarie314/pseuds/EliseMarie314
Summary: The war is over, winter has come and gone and everything in the realm has changed. It’s after the war, during the spring that Jon has to deal with the changes in his wife – something neither war, royalty or winter prepared him for.





	How These Things Change Us

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while ago, before I joined AO3, so here it is! It has been up at ffnet for a few months I think now.
> 
> This story does deal with thoughts and actions linked to post natal depression/anxiety, with mild self harm referred to.

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters appearing in this fic. They belong to GRRM and I love him for them. I make no money and would never wish to make money from his creations. On the other hand, please don’t post this anywhere else without my permission, thank you!

 

**How These Things Change Us**

He stood, a few steps away from her with almost a fear of getting closer, on the battlements as she stared out over the edges of Winterfell. The lands the other side of their home were green again, fertile, with small white patches of snow still melting. Winter had come and gone, leaving the realm in a sorry state but in physical peace at least. A warm spring breeze blew over them, her long red hair blew past her, his own black curls blew in to his face and she seemed to sway with it.

“I remember,” she spoke softly. “How thick the snow was when Theon and I jumped.” She peered over the edge. “The land would not be enough to cushion me now.” He remembered her telling him all about Theon and Ramsay on the eve of their wedding. She had come to him with a thick grey cloak about her shoulders, the one he would replace with his own less than a day later, and sat on his bed, clutching the cloak tightly as if shielding herself from him. Though, through the course of her words, the revelations and secrets she had finally brought to the world, he later wondered if she had been shielding herself from her own memories.

“Sansa,” he spoke gently. “Please step away.”

“I wanted to run and hide.” There was no movement from either of them; the world silent apart from his heart beating loud and fast in his chest. “I was walking through Winter Town and I thought to run away and leave you.”

Their marriage had been borne at the end of winter as the snows had first started to melt, although a fresh blanket of it had occurred on the day they had stepped before the heart tree, the day that she had become his. Now, as he considered her words, all that Jon Stark could think about was how it was her that had planned their marriage. It had been her idea.

“Jon,” she had said one afternoon when the world was still dark and the dead still arose. “The North takes you for a King, the South for a Targaryen Prince, yet I fear you cannot have both. Meanwhile, I have the South wanting my hand, the Vale desires a marriage and even my young cousin requests my hand. Despite this, I only hold value to them if you give up one crown for another.”

“What do you suggest that I do?” He could remember asking the question, he could remember her words that followed, but he could not remember how any of the words had ever come about.

“Save me from being but a womb, simply a title and lands. I wish to remain a Stark, I could never trust marrying when it could be for someone else’s claims to my home. You,” she had said strongly, “already have Winterfell. There is precedence for a sole female heir giving her name to her husband. I trust no one else with the name Stark, but you, Jon.”

Now, almost four years later, she was threatening to leave him.

“You would leave me and take my children!” When had their marriage come to this? He thought she shared the love that he had come to feel. During the first four moons of their marriage, they had lain together infrequently, never sharing a bed for the whole night. It was her mother’s words – duty. That was all that their marriage had been until one night he had awoken to her in his room, shadowed from the moonlight. “Sansa?” he had asked, voice barely a whisper from his sleep.

“Jon,” she had replied as confirmation, moving closer as her shift fell away. “I could not sleep.” He had moved aside and only realized when he had taken her in his arms that she was as naked as the day of her birth. “It’s too warm, Jon. Stifling.” Then she had taken off his clothes. After that night there had been no question as to where she would sleep, neither of them slept alone. She would come to his room whether he was there or working late. For sixteen nights, for he had counted them, she had been insatiable, demanding his attentions and body at least once a night. He could never have imagined that was what their marriage would become.

But then he never thought it would come to them on the battlements with her threatening to leave.

“Not her. Never her.” She spoke with such harshness that Jon was glad he could not see her face. It was a manner she reserved especially for their beautiful babe.

“Just my heir then. My boy.” He suddenly felt an anger that was unjustified as she began to sob, her arms hugging around herself. He could still remember when he realized she was with child, before she had told him and before she had even realized perhaps. He had been sparring with Ser Davos, a random passing conversation really when Jon had declared how little sleep he was getting. “I cannot keep up,” he had yawned to his friend.

“Aye,” Davos had laughed, continuing their sword fight. “My lady wife was always randy in the first few moons. Once it lasted until the birthing bed!” He had laughed then as Jon had faltered.

“Birthing?” The distraction was enough that Davos’ sparring hit had rung true.

“That’s all you care about it, isn’t it?” Her voice rose only slightly with her temper, still quiet enough that no one else noticed them. “Your wolf daughter and Tully son, but you’ll dismiss him as soon as you get a wolf boy from me, won’t you? Then you can be rid of me as you’ve always wanted.”

“I’ve never-” he started to object, but her words continued. 

“Is that why you paw at me night after night, in search of the perfect boy with the Stark look? Perhaps you did marry the wrong sister. You should have waited for Arya to return.”

As winter had finally come to end, Sansa had been the only Stark child to be home, with Jon’s true parentage as Lyanna Stark’s child already known, and Bran and Arya were still lost to them.

“I’ve told you this before, woman,” he huffed impatiently. “I would never have married Arya. I thought this was settled. And I do not paw at you.” At least he did not think he did. After the first three moons of being with child, Sansa’s lusts had diminished but she had remained in his bed, cuddled up tightly until her eighth moon when she had not been in his bed one night. He had sought her out at dawn having barely slept on his own, questioning her absence and fearing that he had upset her.

“No,” she had smiled at him. “It’s… I toss and turn and find sleep evades me now. You do not want my massive form taking up your bed and keeping you awake.”

“My dear Lady,” he had whispered closely to her. “When you first joined me in my bed you would keep me awake the night riding me.” Her eyes had dropped away from his as a bright pink blush had spread up her chest and cheeks. “I love nothing more than having your form beside me whether you let me sleep or not, I could care less as long as you are there.” It had been a truth of his growing feelings for her ever since their impromptu union.

“I… I thought you only wanted me present when I was lustful.” The deeper colour of her blush had been enough to make his knees feel weak.

“I thought I’d lost you when weren’t in my chambers,” he had admitted despite the weakness and vulnerability it gave him. She had been carrying his child, no words of his could make him as vulnerable as she was. At his declaration, she had thrown her arms around his neck, holding him as tightly as she could and he had returned the embrace. After the birth of their son, Sansa had discussed returning to separate chambers with their wailing and wakeful son, but Jon had refused just as she had refused any others from nursing their child. Less than two moons after their son’s birth, Sansa’s passions had returned full force, leading to her being with child again before their first child saw his first name day.

Now, their daughter was a moon’s turn away from her first name day, they had not lain together as man and wife since before their daughter’s birth.

“I do not wish to upset you in our bed, Sansa,” he explained feeling uncomfortable. They were vulnerable on the battlements although there was not a soul in close proximity. It was still words that were better shared in the privacy of their chambers. “I… it has been almost twelve moons.”

She nodded slowly, her eyes still focused on something he could not see. “I… I am scared,” she stuttered.

“Of my hurting you? Have I ever-?”

“No,” she defended him quickly. The eve before their wedding, when she had revealed the truth of her marriage to Ramsay, it had not eased his fears of marrying her. He had already been at odds with marrying a girl that might no longer be his sister, but he had still known since the day of her birth, then she had plunged extra fears of hurting her, forcing her, making her feel as the other bastard had. “I am scared,” she continued. “I cannot give you the wolf boy that you desire. I cannot carry another babe.”

“Has the Maester said something?” He would send for another and another, anything to take away her fear.

“No. I’m scared of how I feel now. How I would then feel.”

“How… how do you feel?”

“I fear I do not love her.” Her hand reached up and swiped at her cheek, at the tear that he could not see from his distance. “I feel…” She seemed to stop the word she truly meant and instead she finished with. “I am a failure as a mother.”

He remembered then a much more recent memory from earlier that day, as they were readying for a visit to Winter Town, the very visit that made his wife want to leave him. She had been with the children in the nursery, just a few doors away from where he was dressing for their family trip, when he had heard her loud voice.

“Shut. Up!” she had yelled at her children both, with a ferocity that Jon had never heard. He had rushed in to the room as she stormed out, her face one of thunder and both children had looked innocent beside their toys. He remembered it now. Lady Catelyn had never spoken in such a way. It had been left to him to finish readying the children, meeting Sansa in the courtyard and then riding to Winter Town. Nothing either children or he could do had brought a smile to her face.

“You are not,” he replied fiercely. Having spent all of his life without a mother, but seeing Lady Catelyn be a mother to five, he could see how Sansa was the perfect mother. A few weeks earlier there had been a commotion in the yard and Sansa had run out with their son’s name on her lips, passing the babe to a handmaiden without a thought. Jon had quickly followed after her. Everything had been fine, the Maester already there and declaring it simply a bump to the toddler’s head, but he had still been wailing from the shock and Sansa had immediately gathered him up in her arms, adjusting her dress to give their son the comfort he desired. Jon had noted how everyone had turned away, averting their eyes as she sat so unladylike on the snow, her breast barely uncovered as their son took his comfort and nourishment, although he took her breast less and less for nourishment as each day passed. In that moment Jon had seen such peace upon her face, stroking at her son’s deep red curls. There had been such love upon Sansa’s face for their boy that he felt his own heart fill with love for her. That memory was juxtaposed with every memory Jon had of Sansa with their daughter.

She laughed at him. Or perhaps at herself, he was no longer sure. “I have not… I have yet to bond with her as I did with our son. Perhaps it is the Stark look upon her. From the moment she was born, all I could see was Arya. You would hold her and she would calm instantly. The bond you two share, I cannot compete with that.” Her eyes were staring into the distance once more, her arms crossed and her hands worrying at each wrist.

“It is the same as the bond I share with our son. The love I feel for all of you, it is…” Despite their newfound closeness, Jon still found some words hard to come by.

“You would rather be with her than I.” It was such a whisper that Jon first thought he had heard wrong. A sob racked through her and he wished he heard incorrectly.

“Sansa,” he took a step closer to her. Through her preoccupation, she knew he had and she took a step away, another closer to the edge of the battlements. Whilst he doubted that she could fall forwards over the higher wall, he worried that she could climb faster than he could move to her. Was he truly worried that she would jump? How had things come to that?

“Do you remember,” she asked, still refusing to be closer or to look upon him. “When she was but a few weeks old and refused to sleep, until you finally came to bed and she spent the whole night in your arms. She has never been that calm for me.”

“Perhaps,” he whispered in reply, “because you are not calm with her.” She turned then, just her head and glared at him. The thought had occurred to him before, he had never dared to suggest it to her. Who was he to question a mother when he had never had one? Their second born was not a good sleeper. Maybe she was when compared to other babes, but not to their own son. Neither Jon nor Sansa could remember enough about their siblings at such an age. Their daughter had just turned nine moons when Jon had gone back to their chambers, a cot still placed beside their bed as their daughter did not like sleeping alone, when he had seen her in the candlelight, pacing up and down the room with a wailing babe in her arms.

“Why? Why will she not sleep?” Sansa had demanded the answer of him as if he had more experience with babes than her. She had sounded hopeless and pathetic almost, his heart had torn at her pain. There had been little he could think of to say to her. Their son had been easier, he would happily sleep between them when he still nursed to sleep and then happily slept with his thumb in his own cot and room.

“Have you tried nursing her?” he had asked innocently, sitting on the bed and removing his boots.

“Yes, Jon, I have. For fuck’s sake. Truly. Why? Why do you always think my teats are the answer?” Her curse had made him blink, even now it was rare to hear such language from her. Something about motherhood had changed her. More specifically it had been since their daughter’s birth and Jon was at a loss. He had taken the babe from her that night, as he had most nights, and watched as she quickly drifted off to sleep as if sensing the calmness in opposition to Sansa’s anxiety.

“We should try a wet nurse again.”

“Because I am not enough?” She had stormed from the room then, sleeping elsewhere and their babe had not awoken until the morning though she had never slept through the night. 

The anger in her glare passed and she swiped at her cheeks with both hands. From his few paces distance, Jon could see they were reddening from tears and he wanted to move closer again. As if remembering the same moment she spoke, “I always feel like I am not enough.” Turning away quickly, he saw the shame in her eyes before she hid from him. “I do not feel strong enough.”

“Strong enough for what?”

“To be her mother.” Where their son slept easily, their daughter did not. Where their son gained weight and thrived in his first year of life, their daughter was slower and caused more worries. Their son slept through the night from four moons old, their daughter only for the past moon. And all of these problems fell mainly on to Sansa despite how hard Jon would try and help her. “Being her father seems to come so easy to you. Still, you are the only one that can get her to eat anything other than mine own milk.”

At eight moons old, Sansa had begun to despair at how little her daughter would eat, worrying that her milk alone was not enough. “Why?” she had demanded one night, again as if Jon had all of the answers. “Why will she not eat? Not even lemon or honey cakes. By now my beautiful boy only nursed for comfort and not through the night. Why?” she had demanded again. “Why will she not behave?”

“She is but a babe,” he had answered carefully as Sansa’s anger was never something that he wanted to receive. “It is not a question of behavior.”

“She has the look of the wolf and acts as wild as one. She only eats for you. Only calms for you and Ghost. You two are her pack.” She had not said anything else, but he knew her unspoken words ‘I am not.’

“You are stronger than you think, Sansa,” he told her honestly. “All that you told me of your time here with Ramsay and your escape with Theon. That is strength. The tales you told me of King’s Landing, the scars that you showed me. That is strength.” When he had beaten Ramsay’s face Jon had been unaware of the full extent of his torture upon Sansa. Sometimes, when he saw the scars that covered her body, Jon wished that he could beat Ramsay and Joffrey and others until they were as bloody a mess and more than Ramsay had been in the yard.

“I am supposed to raise my children, not yell at them. I am supposed to love my children, not desire to run from them. I am supposed to feed them, sustain them and be everything that they need in these first few years, yet I cannot.” Her head shook sadly. “I am your lady wife, your Queen and I am supposed to come willingly to our marriage bed and bear you child upon child, which I just, I cannot see how that is possible.” She turned her eyes from the far distant green fields to the harsh grey of the stone beneath her. “I am not the lady you married.”

“No,” he agreed. “You are the mother of my children and the woman that I love with… with all of my heart.”

“You do not want to see my sagging belly, nor my teats now. The fresh scars that cover my skin. The Seven know what happened down… there. My hips alone require new dresses.” 

As he heard her words he realized for the first time that he had not seen her in her naked form since before their daughter’s birth. She shied away from him, always moved his hands when he would embrace her to fall asleep, allowing them to remain on her but in different places to where he was used. “And those on your wrists?”

She looked at him in anger, her hands returning to her wrists as she then turned away in shame. He remembered a feast only a moon before where he had strongly suggested that Sansa be there. She had tried to object, declaring that their daughter still nursed to sleep and would not sleep with the noise, she would be the one that would be left to deal with her all night long.

“Gods, why do you not have teats that work, Jon?” she had complained after a long night in the Great Hall with a babe who was happily playing with every one who wished to hold her. Except for her mother. During the feast he had seen her looking anxious, rarely smiling and the few she did have were simply polite. He could remember seeing her wringing her wrists on occasion, but it had only been in the morning that he had seen all of the scratches. Ever since that night, he frequently saw her scratching at herself, sometimes he would place a hand over hers to stop them, she would meet his eyes for a moment and seem calmer, but he still never spoke of it until now.

“It calms me.”

“From what?”

“From her. Her cries. Her demands. You see?” she demanded angrily. “I am not strong enough to be her mother. I am not a wolf. I am not Arya.” The final four words were a whisper and not the first time he had heard them. Jon was well aware that Sansa still worried about that. He had returned to his chambers one night, earlier than usual, the babe had been about six moons old, to hear a scream from Sansa and then sobs from their daughter. Sansa had been sitting on the bed anger dripping from her as their babe had sat in the cot crying for her mother. “The wench bit me!”

“Do not call our daughter a wench,” Jon had said, picking up their babe who had calmed immediately.

“Of course. You would side with her! The wolf you love most.” There was no denying that where their son favoured Sansa’s Tully colourings, their daughter… As their son was Rickon reincarnate, their daughter was Arya. “Tell me true, Jon. If she had returned before I, would you rather have married her?”

“No. It makes little sense,” he had tried to explain whilst also calming their daughter. “But she is my sister, always has been and will be. You became my cousin and then my wife.”

“And I am glad you are not Arya.” She looked at him then. “Arya would have no patience for either child. “

“I barely have patience for them.”

“More than she. And then our son would not have your red hair, your blue eyes. His curls.” Whenever his boy smiled, he saw Sansa’s smile and whilst even he agreed that he was Rickon reincarnate, Jon always saw Sansa.

“I have no curls.”

“You did. When you were two. I remember them. All three of us did.” She gave him the briefest of smiles then and it suddenly hit him that they had not been alone in almost twelve moons, this was certainly the longest they had been alone since either child had been born. “Sansa, I miss you.”

She turned fully to face him then, pain visible on her face. “You believe I am afflicted with a mother’s madness? Like my Aunt Lysa?”

He had never met her Aunt, the Tully’s were mainly a mystery to him, so he could not comment to that, but Ser Davos had spoken to him about Sansa’s behavior since the birth of their daughter. “No… I…” He could not admit that to her though. How could he agree twelve moons later when, if it were true, he should have noticed earlier? Maybe if her lady mother had survived or Old Nan were still alive. Perhaps if there were simply any ladies within Winterfell or nearby, someone who understood babes and ladies, maybe then someone would have noticed and been able to help. Winter had hit their people hard.

“I fear I am.” Her whisper was soft on the wind. He took a hesitant step towards her and she did not move away, even as he got close enough to be standing right in front of her. She flinched slightly as he put his hands to her upper arms, stroking softly.

“We can speak with a Maester. There must be some herbs or a potion that you can have, that may help you.”

“I fear there are none that are safe whilst nursing. Moon tea is not.” He nodded in realization of why she would not lay with him if she could not take Moon tea.

“It is almost her name day, we can wean her.”

Sansa laughed bitterly and pulled away again, a step closer to the higher walls. “Wean her! She does not want to be weaned. She will not sleep without it.”

“We shall make her,” he promised. “We will make her and we will find something to help you and you will feel like the strong mother I see.”

“It will not happen overnight,” she warned him.

“I know.” He reached out to hold her again and she did not move away as he held her at an arm’s distance. “But we will make everything right. I promised to protect you, returned you to here and wed you to keep us together and safe. I will not fail in keeping you here, with your family and safe from everything.”

It was her that moved in towards him, collapsing against his chest and he welcomed the weight. He had missed her more than he had realized. That night, he put their daughter to sleep in her cot in the nursery, crying and grizzling for a while, as Sansa read to their son in his room. Before the story was finished, both children were asleep and Sansa’s face showed her surprise and then doubt, but both children slept all night long. He had moved to hold her in their bed, just the two of them in the room, alone together for the first time in almost twelve moons and she had moved his arm away from her lower stomach, higher up on to her ribs as he curled behind her.

“I… it… Your arm feels odd on my stomach,” she whispered in the darkness.

He kissed the back of her neck, happy with her honesty and in the morning when they awoke as alone as they had gone to sleep, he saw her unclothed as the morning sun shone in. She moved to cover herself and he simply smiled at her so she nodded and moved freely around the room without hiding. They were small steps, but they were steps.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah, this needed to be purged from my head, probably more my heart. I purposefully did not name the children because I struggle to believe any of the names they could have, also maybe because it makes them more real and given the subject matter maybe they needed to not be real. I also purposefully did it from Jon’s POV, I have a vague dream of making a companion piece from Sansa's view but I don't think I can do it emotionally. Hopefully his POV worked and the frequent memory flashes were not too confusing.


End file.
